A short video introduces the opening of Ohio Cooperative Solar, one of the network of Evergreen Cooperatives in Cleveland Ohio.  The cooperative has begun to install photovoltaicpanels on the three anchor institutions that are part of Cleveland's economic empowerment zone: Case Western University, University Hospitals, and the Cleveland Clinic. 

The  cooperative will install, own, and maintain the panels that they install and sell the generated power to the host institutions.  As a for profit business they are entitled to government solar incentives that non-profit universities and hospitals cannot receive.  Because solar installation is not a year-round business in the Ohio, the cooperative diversified with a weatherization program for the colder months in order to create full-time jobs.   

CEO Steve Kiel, who says he is like an employee of the cooperative's 20 worker-owners, explains his goals include structured wealth creation for the workers' long term economic security.  A share of the company's surplus is allocated to the workers but retained in the company, capitalizing the business while creating long-term individual savings. 

Via the Cooperative Development Center at Kent State University

Roy Messing of the Ohio Employee Ownership Center gives an hour-long webinar on starting worker cooperatives.  Roy also recently authored an article on business succession in Grassroots Economic Organizing.

OEOC has many other webinars online, including

• The Evergreen Cooperative Project - an overview
• The Ohio Cooperative Solar Story
• Creating and Maintaining an Ownership Culture
• Selling Your Business to Your Employees: Employee-Owned Cooperative
• S-Corp, C-Corp, Partnership_ Entity Selection in Succession Planning

The 25th Annual Ohio Employee Ownership Conference: “Working Together, Saving Jobs” will take place on  Friday, April 29th, 2011 in  Akron, Ohio.  This year’s conference is going to focus on bridging the divides that appear to be separating us and focusing on an idea that unites all sides: saving and creating jobs with employee ownership.  Conference website, flyer.

Do You Work in an Employee-Owned Company? Topics focused on you include...

• Fundamentals of Ownership for Employee Owners
• Healthcare:  What Are ESOPs Doing?
• Building an Ownership Culture
• ESOP Technical Issues
•  Fiduciaries

Business Owner Thinking of Selling to Your Employees? Topics focused on you include...

• Selling to Your Employees Through an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP)
• Cooperatives 101:  How to Sell your Company to Your Employees Through an Employee-Owned Cooperative

Want to Buy the Company You Work For? Topics focused on you include...

• Cooperatives 101: How to Buy Your Company Using an Employee-Owned Cooperative
• The ABCs of Employee-Led Buyouts

Economic Development Professional? Topics focused on you include...

• Selling to Your Employees Through an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP)
• Cooperatives 101:  How to Sell/Buy a Company Through a Worker Cooperative
• ABCs of ESOPs for Employee Owners
• The ABCs of Employee-Led Buyouts
• The Evergreen Cooperatives: Strategies for Reviving Inner City Neighborhoods

Interested in Employee-Owned Cooperatives? Topics focused on you include...

• The Evergreen Cooperatives: Strategies for Reviving Inner City Neighborhoods
• Cooperatives 101:  How to Sell/Buy a Company Through a Worker Cooperative

From the Ohio Employee Ownership Center's 22nd Annual conference, Leslie Schaller, of Casa Nueva Restaurant and Cantina, Todd Brewster of Select Machine, Mark Stewart of Shumaker Loop & Kendrick, and Rod Kelsay of the Mid-America Cooperative Council host an hour and half long discussion on transitioning businesses into cooperatives. The OEOC's library is a rich and growing source of information on cooperatives from their conferences and other work.

John Logue, long time organizer and advocate of cooperatives and employee ownership, has passed away.  There are obituaries here (be sure to read the comments) and  here.  Rest in peace.

Here are links to a small selection of his writings.

• What is an Employee Cooperative?
• Productivity in Cooperatives and Worker-Owned Enterprises: Ownership and Participation Make a Difference!
• Business ownership succession and employee ownership: Why & how  
• interview with Steve Dubb on the Evergreen Cooperative project (2008)
  
• The 1042 Rollover and Cooperatives: The Select Machine Story
• Economics, Cooperation, and Employee Ownership: The Emilia-Romagna Model
• Mondragon Cooperatives: From Mondragón to Ohio: Building Employee Ownership
• Mondragon Cooperatives: Spanish Lessons. Employee-Owned Companies in Ohio on A Mass Scale?

Here he talks about the Jeffersonian apsects of employee ownership.